


After the Flood

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, May the 4th Treat, Obi-Wan/Mace If You Squint, Retiring Together In Space Arizona
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-10-25 04:53:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10757103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Obi-Wan takes his friend with him into exile. Mace doesn't understand why.





	After the Flood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gabriel4Sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gabriel4Sam/gifts).



On a desert night, he could see every star.

Cold radiated through the rough robes Mace wore. With his good hand, he wrapped them more securely around himself. Chill didn't bother him. The multitude of scars from his injuries dulled most sensations. He took care of his body because it was wisdom to do so. Also, Obi-Wan would scold him again if he did not.

The heavy curtain against the windows of the spare but comfortable home allowed out only a pinprick of illumination, not enough to dim the beauty of the night sky. The light behind him changed, briefly brighter, then subdued again. Obi-Wan joined him, his own robe shrugged around him against the frigid temperature. He did not speak, did not ask Mace why he sat outside watching the sky, did not ask what he was thinking. He merely sat beside him, thinking his own thoughts in silence.

They had lived on this dusty, unforgiving world for five months. Mace remembered the journey here only in shadows, clouded in horrific pain. Obi-Wan tended to him in the tiny ship, and tended to the other passenger. An infant. The infant vanished between bad dreams. Part of Mace wondered if the child was a vision, a memory of his own infancy when he was taken from his homeworld by the Jedi confused with his acknowledgement of his incapacity and utter reliance upon his friend. The rest of him never doubted his own senses, insisting the child had been real, and now it was gone.

All the children were gone.

He turned to Obi-Wan. They'd spoken of the tragedy and the many tragedies that followed. Mace held no illusions that any of their friends had survived aside from themselves and Yoda. The rest were dead, from the smallest younglings to the most revered Masters.

"Why did you save me?"

The words should have echoed. They should have reverberated between the stones of this dry world, thundering back in accusation and pain for those who were lost. Instead they floated between them thinly, air stretched to snapping, breaking with the cold between the stars.

Obi-Wan remained silent. From his pocket, he pulled out the slim pipe he'd taken up, playing with the bowl before placing it into his mouth. The stem clicked against his teeth, loud as a shot in the night.

"I was dying. I should have died." Proud flesh covered the stump where his hand once was. Without the resources of the Republic, he would never feel uncanny synthskin over a metal replacement. He'd fallen, struck by dark lightning, bleeding, only his own abilities stopping him from the last fatal crash into the ground. Anakin's betrayal had ached as much as his wounds, and he lay there, unseen, fading, experiencing within his soul the fall of each friend, until Obi-Wan had come to him, drawn to his pain past all other tumult.

The pipe was removed. It was an affectation, something for him to do with his hands. "They all died, all our brethren. How could I possibly survive losing you as well?"

Mace had no reply to that.

* * *

News reached them only sporadically. The Emperor reached out to strangle the galaxy, and his dark-visaged right hand cut a swathe through the stars. Mace had no question of who wore the cold, black helmet. He woke at night seeing the anger and fear on Anakin's face, watching him churn as Mace fought Palpatine, and he would have won the battle had Anakin not come and taken the Sith Lord's side.

Some nights he woke to find Obi-Wan's shadow sitting in contemplation beside him. Loud dreams or loud shouts, it didn't matter which pulled him from his own rest to watch Mace in his restless sleep.

"We can't stand by and allow them to flourish," Mace said. "We are defenders of the peace, protectors of the weak."

"You may go fight. I am staying here."

* * *

The child was named Luke. He was three years old when Mace met him while purchasing supplies at Tosche Station. He stayed by his caregiver's side while she bought her own supplies, wide blue eyes taking in everything around him.

Mace had gone on missions to collect Force-sensitive younglings. He knew the feeling, right between his shoulders and under his ribs, when coming into the presence of one touched by destiny.

"What happened to your face?" the boy asked Mace, noticing his stare.

"Luke, hush," said the woman. "Sorry, sir. He doesn't know he's being rude."

Mace tilted his head. "It's an old war injury. Nothing to be ashamed of."

Her eyes took him in for a long moment. She must have known Obi-Wan brought her the child she was raising as her son. She surely heard about mad Ben Kenobi's equally mad old friend who lived out in the wasteland with him. This woman knew who and what he was, and he counted the fear in her eyes, not for herself, but for what he meant for her child's future.

She took Luke's hand. "Come, Luke. Time to get home."

"Ma'am," Mace said gravely, startling her. "Don't forget your bag." He handed the forgotten parcel to her with his good hand. Her name was still on the screen as he reached past.

"Thanks."

"I watch out for others," he said with a cool smile. "Don't be afraid."

Mace returned home, making sure not to give even the illusion of following the small family. With a name, he could find them later. He unloaded the supplies, then sat in a half-meditative state, listening to the world outside as he waited for Obi-Wan. Just before sunset, the door opened. Obi-Wan's robes were covered with sand, as though he'd been caught in a storm or a fight. Mace never asked him where he went when he took his long walks out into the wilderness. He'd listened once, and heard his friend yelling at Qui-Gon Jinn. Madness was his affectation, but there were days Mace wondered if Obi-Wan had chosen the role for a reason.

His traveling cloak off, Obi-Wan saw the stare. "What is it?"

"When did you intend to tell me about the Lars boy?"

Obi-Wan sat beside him. "You never asked. I assumed you forgot."

"I remember the infant. When I recovered enough and he was gone, I thought maybe I'd dreamed him into being during my fever. He's too young to have come from the Temple, but he's got power. He arrived here with us, didn't he?"

"Yes." The words came from far away. Mace's scars covered his face. Obi-Wan hid his. They bore the same ones on their hearts. "Anakin was married."

Mace did not burst out in anger because anger was the key to the same darkness which had seized their friend and destroyed their home. He had tamed his like a beast a long time ago, giving it a name and a collar and setting it upon his foes at need. He did not shout in grief because grief was a small-minded impulse by children who could not comprehend that all souls were forever joined in the Force, both the living and the beloved dead.

He considered the revelation for what it meant. "Senator Amidala."

"In hindsight, laughably obvious."

"Does Vader know?"

"He believes she perished before she gave birth. The boy is safe here."

Safe was not the word Mace reached for, but from the expression on Obi-Wan's face, it was the only one he was getting. "You were friends with them both. Did you know what was going on?"

Sorrow and regret passed over his face, emotions they both once would have learned to let go. This was a new world, with new lives and new codes. "I suspected, but I didn't know how deeply they were involved. If I had, he might not have fallen to the Dark Side."

The desert was never silent. Winds sighed, and small animals made their chittering way across stone, hunting for meals or mates. Far away, larger animals called out, their cries blunted by the stone walls of their home. Mace heard them nonetheless, filling the still room with the reminders of life and the universe going on around them no matter what else occurred. Their friends were gone. Mace's Padawan lay in a grave with no name. Obi-Wan's Padawan had risen to power in a madness far exceeding anything Obi-Wan could replicate.

The Force went on.

Mace said, "We are here to protect him and watch over him."

"That is my role, yes. My restitution for not watching over his father well enough. You are free to go."

The last sentence was quieter, full of other regrets. Mace lifted each word in his hand, examining it for strength, meaning, purpose. Obi-Wan had failed Anakin, in his own eyes, and that was the summation of his crime and this exile the purgation of his guilt. Mace had surrendered guilt with his anger. There were countless other roads behind him he could have taken, and regretting them helped no one. Only one path lay ahead that mattered.

"I'll stay."

* * *

Mad old Ben Kenobi was feared by the Lars family. Ben's brother, because Beru always described him as such despite everything, was a more welcome sight. A wounded old soldier told the best stories for an eager young boy growing up.

"Call me Reed," Mace said. He once was the strength of weaponry. Now he would learn to bend.

Another day, and the boy had a whole afternoon free. He sat with Mace in the shade of a wall outside Tosche Station. "Consider this rock. See it in your mind. Feel the connection between you and the stone, and the ground, and the wall."

As Luke grew in power, Mace grew in strength. He would never regain his old self. That man had been murdered, as surely as Obi-Wan said Anakin had been slaughtered by darkness. Mace would hold with a rock-solid strength to the core of Jedi beliefs and training and codes. Reed moved with the desert winds, his soul finding peace in compromise, and his heart not bound by the lore.

His place was here. His path was to watch over this child until the time came for the boy to tip the scales of justice. His joy was to sit at night, watching the sprinkled stars overhead with Obi-Wan sitting beside him, until at last one stood and took the other's hand, and they went inside their home together.


End file.
